Making the Nine

by Albertus T. Dudley

There were practical reasons for the existence of the March handicap meeting. It gave an inviting opportunity for boys of every degree of ability to appear without disadvantage in a public contest, and so brought out new material. It was likewise both a formal closing of the winter’s athletic work, and the first account of stock for the greater contests of the spring. With Dickinson and Travers in the sprints, Todd in the hurdles, and Curtis for the hammer and shot, there was still in school a very substantial remnant of last year’s winning team with which to start the spring campaign against Hillbury. Yet gaps remained to be filled, new seconds and thirds had to be provided where firsts seemed fairly safe, and better men had to be found, if better men there were, for the most strongly defended events.

In the jumps and the pole vault was an especial dearth of good material. Melvin had been practicing the high jump in the course of his daily gymnasium exercise hours, though without any idea of excelling in it. With legs full of spring and some intelligence to direct his efforts, the height at which he failed had gradually lifted. A month before, at the Faculty Trophy meeting, he had astonished himself by doing five feet four to the school champion’s five feet five. The practice possessed now for him an additional interest. If he could keep on gaining inches in the same steady way, the spring contests would find him able to clear a very considerable height. Varrell, too, had caught the fever, and was toiling at the pole vault with all the zeal and intelligence which this peculiar boy possessed.

A considerable crowd gathered that Saturday afternoon about the eighth-mile wooden track which lies behind the gymnasium. For the forty-yard dash the contestants came in a flock, four men in a trial, heat after heat, in quick succession; then the winners in sets of semi-finals, and three men in the final heat. The baseball candidates were here almost to a man, for they had been practicing starts and dashes during the winter for base running, and now had their trying out. Dick watched with interest to see what Phil would do with his three feet handicap, and was delighted to see his room-mate get off so sharply and take his heat so easily. The first semi-final the boy ran against Sands, and beat him without difficulty; the second he took from Jordan by a narrower margin. Only in the final heat did he fail, when Jones, a middler, took first, and Travers second, with Phil a poor third.

“Good work, Poole!” said MacRae, a middler rooming in the same entry, who was just coming out for the thousand yards. “I only ask to do as well.”

But MacRae did better. He ran his race with twenty yards handicap, and finished first, close to the school record. The middlers grew enthusiastic.

“What a handicap!” said Dickinson reproachfully to Melvin, as he took his place on the scratch for the three hundred, and looked forward to the front man standing well around the curve. “I may as well not run.”

“It’s not too much for your best, old man,” replied the manager, confidently. “You never know what you can do till you try.”

Dickinson did not answer, for he was already on his mark with the tense, serious expression on his face which Dick liked to see. With the pistol report he was off, making a splendid start—which the manager, in a momentary flash of joy, contrasted with the hesitancy of the year before,—and whipping himself quickly into his stride. He passed Lord on the back stretch, Sandford on the straightaway at the end of the first lap, and then pushed for Von Gersdorf, who had made good use of his twenty yards start, and with his short stout legs flying under him, easily doubled the hard corners that delayed the pursuer. Von Gersdorf struck the final curve with Dickinson at his heels. On the curve short-legs gained. The two plunged into the final stretch with four yards of interval between them, short-legs panting ahead with quick staccato strokes, long-legs swinging again into the wide distance-devouring stride that looked as easy and natural as the piston motion of a fine engine, and yet was challenging muscle and nerve and heart to their utmost.

“Go it Gerty, go it!” shouted the middlers. “It’s yours!” Determined to hold his lead a second longer, Von Gersdorf dug his spikes into the soft board, made a final frantic spurt, and lifted his arms to meet the string with his breast—and found no string to meet. Dickinson had carried it away before him.

“What a race!” exclaimed Tompkins, as he sat with Varrell on the wall. “That’s what I call sport. I’d go miles to see that again!”